Here's another pic.

Checkered garter snake, Black Necked Garter snake⦠These are guess. The picture is not very clear.

Yes, it is a checkered garter snake

Nice sized one. Did it live? Did you get it set free?

OH NO POOR GUY! :( Is there any way to get the trap off of him? Very sad!

Thank you all for your comments. We are having a mice problem due to new construction so we put out the sticky traps by the door in our garage. I'm so sorry but my husband ended up killing it because he wasn't sure what it was and was afraid of it hurting our little one. He's abnormally over protective of him. I feel just awful that he did it and wish we could take it back. I'm glad we now know what it is so we know not to be afraid of it. My sincere apologies for killing it and upsetting anyone. :(

I always check the ID sights for Texas snakes. Rat snakes look the most dangerous and they are good rat and rodent eaters. It might be good to familiarize yourself with the lists. They are very helpful . I have had lots of garter snakes out here, a black rat snake, and a hog snake that hissed at me . He was stuck in some netting and we had to cut him out.

He was the answer to your rodent problem.

Snakes are an excellent answer to the rodent problem, unfortunately many people don't know that.

"Ringtail cats" are another. Since sighting a ringtail about four years ago I have not seen a rat, nor rat droppings. I just hope no one shoots or traps it just because they don't know what it is.

May ringtails and rat snakes live long and prosper! ... :-)

Here is a link that might be useful: Ringtail (Bassariscus astutus)

Thank you, all. Again, I am so sorry my husband killed it. We'll do our due diligence if another one gets in the glue trap. This is our first house and first encounter with a snake and we over reacted. Many apologies.

It's okay. We've all killed good stuff without knowing what we were doing -- snakes and plants and Lord knows what else! We live and learn. Or like Maya Angelou put it, "When we know better, we do better." ... :-)

Cooking oil or mineral oil will "unstick" a sticky trap.

When I first moved to Florida, the pest company put sticky trap boxes in the garage. I was horrified one morning to find a black racer snared in one.

A computer search quickly produced the oil remedy. I grabbed my bottle of canola and hurried back to the garage.

I wasn't brave enough to lift the sticky trap with the snake inside with my hand but quickly found a small round stake. I looped the stake through the box and carried box and snake into the grass. Since the snake's head was in the glue, I had to be mindful not to drown it in oil while "saving" it. I put a bit of oil on the trap away from the head and then tilted the trap so the oil slowly ran toward the snake. As the critter struggled to move, it helped work the oil where it was needed. I'm not sure who was happier when it was able to slither away, skin intact.

I don't know if I had one dumb snake that year or a group, but I did the oil release treatment 4 more times. Then I got smart and got rid of the traps.

June

June, thank you for explaining how to safely remove a snake from a sticky trap! And for doing it ... :-)

I suggest anyone living in Tx familiarize themselves with the 4 venomous snakes before trying to identify dozens of common harmless ones plus another dozen not so common harmless as well. Who cares what his scientific and common name is as long as you know wherther it's venomous? When I say we have 4,that is grouping all the different rattle snakes into a single group. There is also 2 corals but if you learn to identify either on sight,you will recconize both as coral emediatly. About a dozen of our harmless snakes memic the coral's red-yellow-black colors but they are simple to recconize with this little rhyme. Red touch black,friend of jack,red touch yellow will kill a fellow. Pull up pictures of Texas snakes and play a game with 2 or more players. Cover the names of the red,yellow and black snakes and have others say wherether it's a coral or not. Be wise and don't attempt to say what the snake's name is,just yes or no. Now you will recconize a coral as well as all the harmless with one good look. Do we even need to explain how to recconize a rattler? I do suggest listening closly any time you are near one in captivity so you might be aware of one some day when you havn't seen it. There,you already know how to id half the venomous snakes in Texas,work on the copperhead and cottonmouth and you will feel much better next time you cross paths with a snake. We had many more in times passed but the scorpions,alligators,spiders,fireants,wasps,yellow jackets,chiggers,ticks and wild hogs have been eating them up recently.

That's one reason some people don't want to use glue traps, since it does not pick out what it can trap to the sticky glue. However, the oil tip mentioned above does work.

Some people put the sticky trap under something that a mouse/rat will fit in. You will still get things like snakes but it does help against things like squirrels and birds.

On the other hand, if this trap was indoors and you got a snake -- even if the snake is harmless to people, it is a shock to think that snakes are in your home. Some people may want to take measures to get the snakes out, too.

I wish I had known about the oil trick a couple of times,once when stuck to my shower shoe.

This post was edited by klem1 on Thu, Jun 12, 14 at 14:07